


Arthur and the Dragons

by Fable



Series: Merlin [27]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Dream King, Fisher King, M/M, Mini-stories, Punishment, Sex, Stocks, Trident, red dragon - Freeform, stone dragon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-12-28 09:02:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21134144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fable/pseuds/Fable
Summary: Merlin had never planned for Arthur to meet Kilgharrah but he'd had no choice. Arthur uses the stocks to punish Merlin for keeping such a huge secret. But is it punishment? Or is it just an excuse?





	Arthur and the Dragons

The Fisher King wasn’t looking his best, I guess two hundred plus years will do that to a man. The once proud King was as shrivelled as a rotten apple, so bent over that his face was hovering just above his knees, and spiders had used his limbs as supports for their webs.

Seated in a plain wooden chair, not a throne as I’d expected, he clutched a filthy trident in his right hand. The prize that Arthur so valued. The Prince’s desire to please his father overwhelmed his respect for the ancient King, so I’d locked him out of the room. He was currently slamming his fists against the oak door causing clouds of dust to hang below the ceiling.

‘Merlin! Merlin let me in. MEERLINNN!’

I ignored him, focused on the King, and waited. For what I wasn’t sure. The banging outside the castle chamber died away. Arthur had either given up or was formulating another plan – that probably involved putting me in the stocks – a delightful punishment when it involved my bare arse and no rotten fruit. This is currently Arthur favourite chastisement. And mine.

The King stirred and slowly unfurled, wafting dust as he went. ‘Emrys?’ His voice was thin and cracked like paper in a breeze.

‘Sire?’

‘You are here. At last.’

‘Yes, Sire.’ I rushed to his aid as the King’s ancient body listed to the left. Pushing him upright, I cleared the webs from his body.

‘Here.’ His twig-like fingers unfurled one-by-one and the trident, free from an age, clattered to the wooden floor.

‘Merlin?’ Arthur called. ‘Merlin? You, okay?’

‘Yes, Sire. I’ll be with you in a minute.’

‘Minute? What the hell are you doing in there?’

I ignored him.

‘Soon, Emrys, you need to run. And take your Prince with you.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s coming?’

‘What is?’

‘Charon, the Ferryman, is coming for my soul.’ The King took a rasping breath. ‘But it’s what he brings with him.’

I took his shoulders to steady him and looked into his grey eyes. ‘What?’

‘His guardian, a Pitanian dragon.’

‘I am a Dragonlord, Sire, I have no fear.’

‘Not this dragon, Emrys, this dragon is made of stone. You cannot command it. You must go.’

I bent to retrieve the trident, wrapping my fingers around its golden stem, but it would not lift. I tried again.

‘It will not lift until you give me a coin for the Ferryman.’

Yes, I should’ve guessed the trident carried the weight of a thousand ages and would not let loose until its master had been released. I patted my pockets knowing full well I had no coin but I went through the ritual anyway.

‘Try once more,’ the King commanded.

I patted my inside pocket again and felt the round edges of a coin. The King held out one skeletal hand. I placed the coin into the palm of the old man. He bound it with his other hand and closed his eyes.

The Ferryman entered the room from nowhere on an up-draught of icy air. He was dressed in dirty rags from top to toe which moved independently like snakes. He had no face that I could see under his cloaked head, just a black void. He was upon the Fisher King before I could blink and seized the coin from his hand.

‘Run, Emrys. Run.’ The King whispered before his earthly body morphed into whirling black shreds. The Ferryman’s snake rags reared and enveloped them. Charon and the Fisher King disappeared in a cloud of spinning dust.

I lifted the trident, now free from its master.

‘MERLIN!’ Arthur shouted.

Arthur. I ran to the door, incanted the lock, and yanked it open. The Prince was propped against the corridor wall, arms crossed, and frowning. ‘About time,’ he said and then noticed the trident. Well, even the Prince couldn’t miss the tall shiny thing in my hand. ‘ Oooh. Excellent. Where was it?’

‘We have to run.’ I grabbed Arthur’s sleeve and attempted to pull him along the corridor.

He didn’t budge. He was a stubborn man who had the ability to turn to stone when he needed to. Maybe he could fight the Pitanian alone – stone-to-stone? ‘Run? Where? Why?’ he said.

I didn’t need to say anymore as a noise roared down the corridor as if a torrent of boulders were elbowing for space. This time Arthur moved under my pull. ‘What the…’

‘Pit-anian dra-gon.’ I puffed as I ran through the maze of limestone corridors with Arthur behind me.

‘Dragon? There are no dragons.’

I glanced over my shoulder. ‘What’s that then?’

Barrelling down the corridor was a beast made from thousands of blocks of pale stone that glowed, even in the dim corridor. There were no curves on his jagged torso, his head appeared too small for his body, and his tail was whip thin. The wings of the dragon were vaporous, like a memory of wings. The creature was smaller than I’d imagined – Wyvern sized - it could just fit through the castle hallway by clawing along the walls.

We exited the ruined castle like our arses were on fire; Arthur was in front with me behind trying not to trip over the trident that was most unwieldy. We darted down the grassy bank in front of us and into the surrounding forest. The beast was close, I didn’t have to look around to know that, his footfall shook the ground and an accompanying wind flapped my jacket and hair.

‘Here.’ Arthur grabbed my arm, spun me on my heels, and threw me behind a wide trunked tree. We jammed our backs against the bark, blew long breaths, and waited.

Normally hiding behind a tree, or a door, or a barrel, was a good move. The beast, warrior, skeleton, or evil spirit always hurried straight past.

Not this time.

The Pitanian stopped in front of us, paused, and then reared so it was blocking out the sky and our world became dark, cold, and frightful. It creaked as its massive stone body jostled for space and tensed for the strike. Rows of sharpened teeth like alabaster arrow heads filled my view.

Fuck. I knew a time like this would come. I glanced at Arthur who was sharpening his sword on the beast’s leg, turned well away from him, and then incanted with my hand in front of my mouth, ‘O, Dragarn! E mala, so ftengometta tesd'hup'anankes.’ I didn’t know if whispering the Great Dragon worked, I’d only yelled for him before, it either did and we were saved or it didn’t and we were Pitanian flour.

The unmistakable hammer of powerful wings filled the air.

The powerful red dragon landed square onto the back of the smaller Pitanian forcing into onto the ground. Kilgharrah raised a foot and forced a long claw into a gap in the stones at the back of the Pitanian’s neck. Like a knot had been undone, the dragon collapsed into a hundred blocks that rumbled and spilt across the forest floor.

I started to climb across the boulder field towards Kilgharrah but Arthur held me back. ‘It’s okay,’ I said and prised his hand off my jacket. I pointed towards the dragon as if Arthur couldn’t see the enormous beast that blocked out the setting sun. ‘Arthur, this, um, is Kilgharrah.’ I never thought I’d say that.

Predictably, Arthur scrambled over the shattered Pitanian, thrust his sword towards the red dragon’s expansive chest, and did one of those little dances that always preceded a fight.

Kilgharrah rumbled a deep laugh that vibrated my ribcage before saying, ‘And what do you think your sword will do to me, young Prince?’

I stood in front of the dragon. ‘No, Sire. He’s my friend.’

Arthur stood for a moment before sheathing his sword and sliding in front of me. His breath was hot on my cheek and his eyes glinting like sunlight on polished iron. ‘What! What?’

‘He saved our lives, Arthur.’

‘That dragon, Mer-lin, killed hundreds of people.’

‘Yes, Sire, and your father killed every one of his kind.’ I glanced up at Kilgharrah who was watching us with his eyes narrowed and head tilted. ‘Do you wonder that he was angry?’

‘How did you call him?’

‘I didn’t.’ I lied. Now was not the time or place for a magic reveal. ‘He knew we were in trouble and came.’

Arthur paced the sodden grass with his hands behind his back for a long moment before saying, ‘I just don’t know anymore, we were just nearly killed by a rock formation and my servant is a friend of its cousin.’

‘Yes, it must be a terrible shock,’ I offered.

‘Shock?’ Arthur poked his sword at my chest. ‘Shock, I’ll give you shock.’

‘Is that a promise?’ I smiled and then let the smile drop as Arthur scowled at me.

Kilgharrah lifted off the ground, stirring our hair with every beat of his wings, and then disappeared above the trees.

We began the walk back to Camelot, me with the trident, Arthur with his grumpy face.

‘You’re angry with me.’ I said.

‘Yes, I am. What other secrets are you keeping from me?’

‘None, Sire, I promise,’ I said and crossed my fingers in my pocket.

‘You know you must be punished for keeping secrets from your master.’ Arthur said as we reached the gates of the Citadel.

My knees loosened. ‘Yes, Sire.’

*

There was nobody awake apart from a couple of guards carrying out their rounds.

The stocks were in a small square in the lower town. There were three sets around Camelot but these were Arthur’s favourites as they were lower than the others. So when my head and hands were in the holes my arse was higher than my shoulders.

Arthur was jittery from winning the trident, defeating the Pitanian, and meeting Kilgharrah so my time in the stocks was going to be quick and hard. Without been asked I placed my head and hands into the gaps and clicked the contraption shut. Arthur roughly kicked my legs apart. He didn’t remove my trousers; he never did, he always preferred to slide them down to just below my arse.

One stretched out and bitter winter, Camelot was snowed in and the Prince was bored stiff, so for three months he’d taken the company of his favourite knight. Leon told me he’d also done the trouser-thing to him, leaving just another space for entry – so to speak. He also said that Arthur like to rip his tunic up the back, because Arthur liked the ‘taken from behind by surprise’ appearance. But this is another story.

I tightened my grip of the wooden supports.

‘I swear, Merlin, I won’t stop until your knees give way.’

‘Is that a promise?’ I whispered.

Arthur had a small jar of grease that he kept stashed in a hole in the stone wall behind the stocks. The smell reminded me of the palace kitchens after a banquet. I was trying not to think about what animal it might have been, when strong fingers gripped my hips and Arthur’s smooth warm skin pushed up against me.

He lifted me clean off my feet as he pushed into me. Forming a rhythm of lifting, and dropping, and plunging until I was full of him and he was growling like a wounded bear.

‘Beg for mercy,’ he said and nearly pushed me through the stocks with his next thrust.

I stood on my tiptoes with the force, drew a full breath, and said, ‘Mercy, Sire,’ in the quietest voice I could muster. Arthur loved a whimper. And I loved him. ‘Mercy,’ I repeated.

‘No.’ Arthur rumbled.

Quick and hard it was. Arthur was unyielding, his hands, slippery with grease, kept slithering off my hips, so he grabbed the cross beam of the stocks and thrashed me. My shoulders banged into the wood that was holding me in place, my arms moved in and out of the holes like a ramrod, and my feet scrabbled for purchase, but I was delirious with pleasure. I adored the feel of him moving in me, the wood grating my skin with the friction, and at the end he always fell against my back and said…

‘Consider yourself punished, Merlin.’

And I always said, ‘Oh, I do, Sire. I do.’

Arthur undid the stocks and pulled me to my feet. For a moment, we stared at each other in the first light of dawn, a peach glow highlighting his cheeks, his hands on my shoulders, mine on his hips. He kissed me. He’d never kissed me before. It was swift and grazing but it meant everything.

‘Let’s go,’ he said.

We staggered up the steps into the citadel, I dragged the trident behind me, it clattered on the stone. ‘Merlin, pick it up, do you want to wake the whole palace?'

'No. Here.' I proffered the prize.

Arthur ignore it. 'Merlin, you may do me in return.’

He always said that and I always took him up against the bedpost in his chamber. But I didn’t roll his pants down to just below his arse, no, no, I always stripped him completely naked.

*

‘Merlin. Where have you been? You’ve been gone all night.’ Gaius said as he held the door to his chamber open the following morning.

‘Watching an ancient King die, claiming a trident, running away from a stone beast, and introducing Arthur to Kilgharrah.’ And been fucked senseless by the Prince, and doing him in return, I wanted to add. But didn’t.

I staggered through the room, up the few stairs, and collapsed onto my cot with aching legs, grazed arms, and a pleasantly sore arse. Gaius clicked my chamber door shut and I heard him sigh loudly.

Then the Dream King entered on whirl of warm air and a flap of fine oriental silks. He was hazy and translucent, dark-haired, handsome, and broad-shouldered. He whisked me away to his bed. Again. And that’s another story.


End file.
